Revolution Fans Save National Anthem When Microphone Cuts Out On Raynham Teen

RAYNHAM (CBS) – At 17-years-old, Molly Caron can truly say she’s wanted to sing the national anthem at Gillette Stadium for half her life. Her family has season tickets to the New England Revolution, and she’s been trying to get in front of that crowd since she was nine, according to her father.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I always wanted to sing it at a big place with a bunch of people,” she says. “It’s just one of my goals.”

This Saturday, she finally got her chance. She started off well, but then, just seconds in, technology intervened. Her microphone died. Just like that.

Molly explains: “I had no idea what happened. I banged the microphone and I handed it to the man and he gave me another one, and he just said, ‘Keep going, keep singing.’ So I just sang the whole time.”

Molly’s a soccer player herself — at least she was, until she suffered a bad concussion about a year ago. She and her parents decided giving up the sport she loved was the best move. So the Raynham native shifted focus, and is now on a mission to educate kids and parents about concussion dangers.

Specifically, she’s advocating for a new state law to mandate baseline concussion testing for all student athletes. That way, she explains, doctors would have a better sense of how injured a student-athlete is after an accident. Her work on concussion awareness is part of the reason why she was chosen to sing in the first place. It’s also an issue she works on in connection with her role as Miss Easton Outstanding Teen.

At Gillette on Saturday, Even as Molly battled with her mic, she just kept singing. Technical crews tried to figure out what was wrong, but almost immediately, the 20-thousand-plus crowd helped her out by singing along.

“The crowd just kind of picked right up and I got kind of confused because I was like, wait, what happened,” she says. “Then everyone was singing, and I was like, OK, I’ll just go with it!”

Then, with just a few notes left in the anthem, her mic clicked back on. The crowd roared with pleasure, and Molly had made it through an unusually trying public appearance.

Molly’s hoping for an opportunity to redo her big chance – but even if she doesn’t, she says it was an incredible experience.

“It’s really nice that when something fails to have everyone pick up for you and it’s nice that everyone helped out,” said Molly.